Problems with sharing external hard drive

[breezett93]

Hi everyone,

I have an Iomega external hard drive connected via USB to a laptop running Windows 7 that I use as a server. My original goal was to set up the external hard drive to be accessible by my other various machines. I googled and found that I could share it with everyone in my Homegroup. I have been using this set up now for about a month, and my experience has been disappointing.

Frequently the other machines in my Homegroup cannot access the drive or will have access denied on one day, but the next will work perfectly fine. I even added the Everyone group with full control and results have been not great. So I have had enough.

So I'm looking for help with two things:
1) The fix so that everyone on my home wifi network can access the drive.
2) Set up a password for the drive, so that I am still the only one with access.

Thanks!

 

[digitaldoc]

Windows Homegroup does not work particularly well for serious network storage.

A better solution would be to set this up as a NAS. You can make your own NAS box, or buy a commercial solution. I've linked to some solutions below.

http://lifehacker.com/turn-an-old-pc-into-a-nas-vpn-media-streamer-and-mor-1516484110

http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-4TB-Personal-Storage-WDBCTL0040HWT-NESN/dp/B00EVVGAD0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1425851144&sr=8-3&keywords=western+digital+nas

 

[USAFRet]

Homegroup in Windows stinks.

I just have the external connected to my HTPC shared as a regular share. No Homegroup needed or wanted.
All devices (Win 8.1, Win 7, droid tablet) can see it seamlessly. On the Windows systems, map network drive, done.

You can set up the share as Everyone = Read, you = read/write.

 

[nukemaster]

Having the everyone group with full control is an awful idea because anyone can do anything.

You should have a user account on the server system that matches the users on your systems(same login and password). You can have multiple users as needed to allow access multiple users on the network.

Now with this setup you will want to adjust the security permissions on the folders you want to share to allow these users(not all users) to have the require permissions. You can have another share for everyone if you wish. You will also have to have matching share permissions as well. If the share of NTFS permissions do not allow it, you will have issues. The share permissions will only need the users and not all the other system related stuff.

 

[breezett93]

Windows Homegroup does not work particularly well for serious network storage.

A better solution would be to set this up as a NAS. You can make your own NAS box, or but a commercial solution. I've linked to some solutions below.

http://lifehacker.com/turn-an-old-pc-into-a-nas-vpn-media-streamer-and-mor-1516484110

http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-4TB-Personal-Storage-WDBCTL0040HWT-NESN/dp/B00EVVGAD0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1425851144&sr=8-3&keywords=western+digital+nas

Thanks for the info! I'm way more familiar with Windows than Linux; so I'd really like to keep using Windows. Eventually, I'd like to get a NAS when I have $$ =p.

 

[breezett93]

You should have a user account on the server system that matches the users on your systems(same login and password). You can have multiple users as needed to allow access multiple users on the network.

Okay, I have made sure all my administrators have same account name and pw. Some of them did not, but there is still 1 stubborn machine that cannot access the drive. It is visible though.

Now with this setup you will want to adjust the security permissions on the folders you want to share to allow these users(not all users) to have the require permissions. You can have another share for everyone if you wish. You will also have to have matching share permissions as well. If the share of NTFS permissions do not allow it, you will have issues. The share permissions will only need the users and not all the other system related stuff.

So I am the only one using this drive, which should simplify things. I did check the Network and Sharing advanced settings and made sure all 3 machines' settings matched. They didn't, but they do now. The one machine is still unable to access the drive.

 

[nukemaster]

Is it an XP system by any chance. I remember needing a hotfix for XP systems loosing network shares from time to time.

Remember under Windows 7 you are not an admin at all times so you need to place your user name as opposed to just administrators or users. In my case the admin account(even elevated by UAC) has NO access to my share.

Here are my exact settings.

Server side(the system with the hard drie)

Host side(the system with a network drive mapped)

It has been this way for about 2 years.

EDIT, I also did this for the XP systems loosing connection and it worked perfect(checked to make sure that was in my registry and it is). Had given me no issues.
http://serverfault.com/questions/235032/intermittent-connection-to-windows-7-shared-folder-from-windows-xp-workstations

 

[Ra_V_en]

http://joshmccarty.com/2013/07/fix-windows-7-homegroup-service-that-will-not-start/

The accounts doesn't have to be the same, authentication is done after connection with share is established. From another station you have to provide username and password, it really doesn't mater did you set the same profiles... it might not require the password on the connection to the server this way but it won't solve configuration issues. The main problem with homegroup is almost always host name resolution, since you don't have DNS server the station that is establishing connection is simply spaming the LAN sending request like "is there any \\XYZ\ there?" after it gets response OS caches the ip adress of XYZ.

First thing i would do is to set either static IP address for the server or set address reservation over DHCP settings on the router for this specific PC (if DHCP is used and i guess it is). Actually the best would be to set all the stations within the network to static, it solves most of the name resolution issues.

If some reason you cannot access the server by name you could by ip, which doesn't have to spamm the network about its name but directly asks the provided address.

I'm not sure in which way are you searching the network share but i bet you are using Network icon on the desktop, then wait until the PC shows on the network list then go to shares.
Not sure you know you can instantly call the share within Start button \Start search -> you put the share address like that \\ServerName\ShareName\ or even more effective \\ServerIpAddress\ShareName\
First one uses name resolution (which is bad as we know) second searches exact ip addres for the share which is far way more effective.
If you get error message informing that share is unaccessible its either network issue or server is down... simple as that.
If its network issue then you can check it with ping command, if server down ... well turn it on lol

As USAFRet said you can simply map this share as a local drive, which simply does the command above each time you open Computer window and shows that share as a mapped drive. If you map drive using ServerIpAddress instead of ServerName it would work even faster.

Does all stations are windows 7? You have to know that this kind of sharing works only within specific OS types.

Ugh a nice poem... i hope you will get what i had in mind

 

[breezett93]

Is it an XP system by any chance. I remember needing a hotfix for XP systems loosing network shares from time to time.

Remember under Windows 7 you are not an admin at all times so you need to place your user name as opposed to just administrators or users. In my case the admin account(even elevated by UAC) has NO access to my share.

Here are my exact settings.

Server side(the system with the hard drie)

Host side(the system with a network drive mapped)

It has been this way for about 2 years.

EDIT, I also did this for the XP systems loosing connection and it worked perfect(checked to make sure that was in my registry and it is). Had given me no issues.
http://serverfault.com/questions/235032/intermittent-connection-to-windows-7-shared-folder-from-windows-xp-workstations

It is a Win 7 machine, but i'll check out that link.
On my server, I have an additional default account listed, SYSTEM. Should I keep or remove it?
I have successfully reconnected my main client. But the Win 7 machine still doesn't have access. I did try the Connect with different credentials as well.

 

[nukemaster]

Do not remove default accounts like system(it should not be needed).

In the network and sharing center under advanced check to see if your HomeGroup connection option is set to use user accounts and passwords for connecting to other computers. I do not think it is needed, but it can not hurt to try.

 

[breezett93]

Do not remove default accounts like system(it should not be needed).

In the network and sharing center under advanced check to see if your HomeGroup connection option is set to use user accounts and passwords for connecting to other computers. I do not think it is needed, but it can not hurt to try.

That did it!
Both my machines have the new network share properly mapped. Thank you!

 

[nukemaster]

Glad to hear you got it working. I love the central drive idea because backups can now be done from one place.